The present invention relates to an automotive column automatic transmission (AT) shift lever device and, more particularly, to a type of column AT shift lever device for performing a select operation using a select button provided in a shift knob.
A column AT shift lever device is a device wherein a shift lever is mounted near a column shaft. In a widely employed construction, at the time of a shift operation, for example, from the park position to a drive position, a select button provided in a shift knob is pressed so that the engagement between a detent plate and a detent member is released by operation of a select rod or a select cable, thereby permitting shift operations to proceed.
However, a conventional detent plate incorporated in a column AT shift lever device has a projection-recess detent pattern on its cylindrical surface that is coaxial with the rotating axis of the shift lever. Therefore, a detent plate is not easy to manufacture. In particular, if the device is reduced in size, the radius of the curvature of the cylindrical surface is similarly reduced and it becomes difficult to achieve high dimensional precision. The problem is that an error in the dimensional precision of the detent plate leads to error in the position of a shift cable assumed to correspond to each position of the shift lever.